One of the last things most Americans want to hear is that nationwide unemployment is unlikely to drop much from the current 8.6 percent anytime soon.
But that may be the sad reality.
A recent Federal Reserve report stated that the United States may be able to avoid a new recession, but that growth is so weak that joblessness just isn't coming down significantly.
And a number of economists have predicted that it will be at least 2015 before unemployment drops to a fairly normal level.
Do you feel that unemployed Americans -- millions of whom have now been jobless long term -- can afford to wait that long before they get work?
Ironically, even President Barack Obama seems to have pulled back from his previous claims that the U.S. economy is in recovery.
In a recent campaign speech in Pennsylvania, he admitted that "[W]e're not fully out of the recession yet."
That is hardly news to the American people, who have watched as the economy has grown so slowly that job creation can barely keep up with the normal growth of the size of the workforce.
But even though the president is acknowledging that the U.S. economy is still in bad shape, he appears to have no intention of reversing his prescription for the economy: He still wants higher taxes, as well as more federal "stimulus" spending on top of previous failed stimulus spending.
And he has no desire to pull back on the excessive, complicated, costly regulations of ObamaCare, which are stifling businesses that might otherwise create jobs.
It is disheartening that the high unemployment and explosive national debt of the president's term in office have not persuaded him to change course.
That is one more reason why the American people should "change course" by selecting a new president -- and many new members of Congress -- in 2012.